Not one, not two, but three American corporations are on the works in outbidding each other to acquire the operation rights of China-owned company, TikTok.
Another American owned corporation joins the race to acquire China's most popular social media and short video streaming application, TikTok, in its U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand operations.
Larry Ellison's Oracle Corporation, a multinational technology company infamously known for harsh methods, is now joining the bidding wars to acquire Tiktok operations less than a month before President Donald J. Trump's September 15 deadline. Reports were initially released by Financial Times and are confirmed by several parties who know.
In preliminary talks with the Chinese company, ByteDance, Oracle Corporation is negotiating a deal to acquire said rights.
F.T. then continued to note that an anonymous person wishing not to be named said that Ellison's Oracle is also generating a deal with U.S. investors who currently own a chunk of rights on ByteDance's TikTok. General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital are among those who are stakeholders of TikTok from the U.S.
Historically, Oracle has been very acquisitive (though not as much recently, at least in terms of larger deals). The company also has had a reputation for being harsh on integration. https://t.co/MxtqiOTdjh— Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) August 18, 2020
A CNBC journalist stated in a tweet that he confirms Oracle as a new player in the TikTok acquisition rights. However, Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) also notes that Oracle is known for being harsh on integration when it comes to business-to-business deals.
Back in 2018, The Information reported that Oracle was threatening its potential customers with potentially costly audit usage audit and strongly advising them to move to the cloud to solve their problems,
Currently, spokespersons of Oracle and TikTok remain silent and decline to comment on the topic.
The recent development of Trump's statement of shutting down the app was changed to an extension of the corporate buy-out deadline. The new deal is to sell TikTok to an American-owned company and giving the U.S. Treasury a substantial amount from the sale for the country, allowing it back again.
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 30: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House July 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. Earlier in the day Trump suggested in a tweet that November’s general election should be postponed, citing his unsubstantiated assertions of widespread mail-in voter fraud amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
These conditions are what the President asks for the operations of TikTok to continue, due to the fear of China possessing American citizens' data. TikTok was then reported as a 'malware' that harvests user information, especially American citizens, which ByteDance denies.
Microsoft Acquisition
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - AUGUST 03: In this photo illustration, a mobile phone featuring the TikTok app is displayed next to the Microsoft logo on August 03, 2020 in New York City. Under threat of a U.S. ban on the popular social media app, it has been reported that Microsoft is considering taking over from Chinese firm ByteDance. (Photo Illustration by Cindy Ord/Getty Images)
Bill Gate's Microsoft is one of the frontrunners of the TikTok rights acquisition and has been actively pursuing it. Since early August, Microsoft has been negotiating for the longest time, a deal that would suit Trump's preference and agenda.
The Verge adds that Microsoft has been pushing ByteDance to give the former the global operation rights of TikTok. ByteDance was firm that the deal would only encompass rights for the four countries included from the original agreement.
Twitter Acquisition
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End Gadget stated in a report that Social Media corporation, Twitter, is also in the preliminary talks-stage with ByteDance in pursuing operation rights for TikTok. Twitter believes that it has more chances of acquiring the app over Microsoft due to Twitter's influence and size.
However, Twitter's size could also be a drawback for them because TikTok's possible sale is estimated to be tens of billions of dollars. The entirety of the social media platform's market capitalization is currently at $29 billion.
New Player: Oracle-Who are they?
Twitter: Oracle (@Oracle)
With recent reports that surfaced and confirmed by journalists, Oracle is now generating enough noise to make their intentions heard of purchasing the video streaming platform.
Oracle Corporation was founded by engineers Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates way back in 1977, having the name "oracle" in 1982. Since then, Oracle operated as a software and data provider to share technology with the people.
The confirmation of Oracle joining the operation rights acquisition poses a concern by the CNBC journalist who stated that the company is harsh on integration with regards to business mergers and acquisitions. Nevertheless, TikTok's time is ticking as September 15 draws near.
